Interpreting foreign driver data
NEW Zealand drivers are crashing at higher rates than drivers visiting this country, Ministry of Transport data shows, it was reported this week. Despite tourist visitor numbers continuing to rise, the number of crashes has not risen to match, the news report also said. ‘‘The data dispels the myth that overseas drivers are an increased danger on New Zealand roads.’’
Really? Those who drive around the West Coast, or over the Lindis or near Queenstown are likely to be incredulous. Just about everyone has stories of what one might term unusual foreign driving.
So what is going on? Why does the data conflict with anecdotal experience? One police officer stationed in a tourist area has actually agreed about the hazards of foreign drivers, before being shut down.
The data was released by the Ministry of Transport. It would seem officialdom, including the police, rejects the narrative of dangerous foreign drivers. As we know, however, statistics themselves might not mislead but the way they are compiled, interpreted and broadcast can certainly lead to wrong conclusions.
There are two main sets of statistics (from 2013 to 2017) used in the report: First, where crashes happen and the number and percentage involving foreign drivers, and, secondly, the number of road deaths.
Take Dunedin. The number of crashes involving foreign drivers was 70 or 6.4% of crashes. But the proportion of kilometres driven by foreign drivers in Dunedin is likely to be far less than 6.4%. The local population will be driving many of the 365 days of the year, and there will also be thousands of New Zealand visiting drivers to dilute the proportion of foreign tourist drivers and those on overseas licences living in Dunedin.
The percentage leaps to 42.6% in Westland and 33.3% in Queenstown Lakes. Even in areas with relatively small permanent populations, lots of locals drive around, as do New Zealand visitors. Are one in every three kilometres driven in Queenstown Lakes by a foreign driver? Even in a tourist mecca that seems unlikely.
The death data is also as bald as an overused tyre, and could be explained in different ways. Of 378 road deaths in 2017, 34 perished in crashes which involved a foreign driver. In 18 of those, the foreign driver was at fault, but in ‘‘just five’’ were they deemed to have failed to adjust to New Zealand roads.
Foreign drivers will, mostly, be driving at regular times. It is they whom New Zealand drivers aged 25 to 75 on the open road are likely to encounter. It is they whom ‘‘middleoftheroad’’ New Zealanders might well see crawling around bends and speeding up on straights.
Yet, the New Zealand deaths include all those young people smashed up in the middle of the night or trying to flee police, or all those vulnerable road users on motorcycles. About a quarter of this country’s road deaths are in the 15 to 24 age range. Some years, the tally approaches a third.
New Zealand, indeed, has its share of appalling drivers overtaking on yellow lines and driving far too fast. It could well be that across the board there are more of those ‘‘idiots’’ proportionally than foreign drivers.
But there is little doubt that New Zealand’s narrow, winding roads where you drive on the left are foreign to numerous visitors. Many struggle to cope, just as most New Zealanders would be flummoxed in the likes of Beijing traffic.
Alternative interpretations of the Ministry of Transport data fail to establish foreign drivers are a significantly higher risk than average New Zealand motorists. But neither does thoughtful consideration of the data indicate, as one police inspector claimed, that the numbers show tourist drivers were not a major issue on our roads.